Annual World Antibiotics Awareness Week

Annual World Antibiotic Awareness Week will be celebrated 12.-18. November and November 18th will be the European Antibiotic Awareness day. World Antibiotic Awareness Week aims to increase awareness of global antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics are lifesaving medicines and they have added an average of 20 years to our life expectancies¹. However, inappropriate use of antibiotics in humans and animals has encouraged microbes to evolve resistance, resulting in the emergence of untreatable superbugs. A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – are becoming more difficult to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. It has been estimated that 10% of antibiotics prescribed in the UK and 30% in the US every year are given to people who do not need them. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest challenges facing the basis of modern medicine and without action by 2050 someone could die every three seconds as a result of AMR².

Point-of-care diagnostic tests are an essential part of the solution in tackling antimicrobial resistance by promoting more appropriate use of antibiotics and supporting physicians to reach the right diagnosis and correct treatment decision.

The www.tackleamr.com website contains versatile information about antimicrobial resistance as well as about diagnostic tools to avoid unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions. From the webpage you can download a useful guide “The Value of CRP in Clinical Use“ which provides evidence-based information about AMR and the importance of CRP testing.